I could drink the Milky Way
by hypotheticalfanfic
Summary: Amy x Rory oneshot.


The TARDIS doors slammed shut behind them, keeping the yellow blobs at bay. Somehow, the Doctor had managed to insult them by calling them gelatinous, which apparently meant something different on that planet than it did for humans (and Time Lords), and they'd only just managed to get inside before something very, very bad happened.

"That was..." Amy panted, plastered an angry scowl on, peered up at the TARDIS ceiling, as if the right word was printed there.

"Exciting?" The Doctor's voice was charged with that little-boy glee he got just after they'd survived something impossible. She could hear him fiddling with dials and levers on the console, trying to sweet-talk the TARDIS into taking them somewhere slightly less exciting.

"Eventful?" Rory's voice was drier, more serious, but still with a chuckle behind it. He was laughing at the Doctor, and if Amy'd been looking at him he would have had his head ducked to hide it. Rory laughed at the Doctor a lot, but no one ever seemed to notice it except Amy.

"No. That was," she looked back at her boys - the Doctor nearly vibrating with energy, Rory's grin only just hidden by his hand, "ridiculous." The stern expression she'd been trying to hold slipped, and she dissolved into giggles to match Rory's.

Amy woke up. She was still smushed up against the wall of the TARDIS, leaving just enough room on the bottom bunk for Rory to balance precariously on the edge. But Rory wasn't there, wasn't snoring softly, wasn't twitching his left foot in that way that made her want to punch him.

"Rory?"

No answer. She stretched, feeling joints crackle and pop, and got out of bed, grabbing her robe as she left the room. The TARDIS was functionally infinite, but they'd both eventually started to have patterns when they wandered. Amy checked the pool first; Rory had a habit of going for a late-night swim when he was bored or when he wouldn't stop thinking. When he wasn't there, she tried the library; sometimes she'd find him there, reading history, arguing aloud with people who "got it all wrong, I was there, bloody incompetent morons," but no such luck tonight.

The last place to look before stepping out into the main control room was the kitchen - Rory didn't eat much, really, never had, but sometimes he got a craving for a late-night mug of cocoa, and the TARDIS refused to put anything in their room that could be used to make any sort of food or drink. Amy thought that the TARDIS probably thought that food was for kitchens and bedrooms were for beds, but whatever the reason, it meant that some nights, Rory was in the small kitchen on their side of the TARDIS, heating water and digging through cabinets to find marshmallows. Tonight, though, was not one of those nights.

Amy sighed. She would never understand why he'd come out here sometimes; when she'd follow him most nights like, he'd end up just standing there, staring at the central console. She couldn't ever tell if he was trying to figure out the controls, or just lost in thought. As she stepped out into the room, she called, "Rory, why are you-" and stopped short at the sight.

There he sat, the TARDIS door open and his feet dangling out over the vastness of space. At the angle Amy stood, she could just see the starlight play over his face. He looked almost like he was praying, staring out into nothingness like that.

"Rory?" She spoke quietly, trying not to startle him.

He looked over at her. "Hey." Turned back out at the stars.

"Are you coming back to bed, then?"

"Later." He glanced at her. "Come look." Scooted slightly to one side to make room.

Amy sat beside him, her bare feet tingling just a bit in the chill of space; the TARDIS kept them breathing and not frozen, but it didn't keep away all the coldness of the universe. Rory didn't say anything, just looped one arm around her; she nestled gratefully into the warmth. "All right, what am I looking at?"

He raised his arm. "There." She looked out at where Rory pointed: a smear of light in the darkness of space, pinpricks of stars swirling together like milk spilled on a floor. "D'you see," he said, "that's the Milky Way. That's our galaxy." Rory knew his stars and planets, probably because Amy'd bullied him into learning it all for his Raggedy Doctor portrayals. "We're right there, you can't see us, but that's Earth."

Amy looked. She'd been dangled out in space before, the Doctor gripping her ankle, but she found that she much preferred sitting beside Rory, his arm around her, his whispering description of the sky. She leaned her head on his shoulder and sighed.

"Do you miss it?" she asked, guessing she already knew the answer.

"Sometimes." He took a deep breath, pressed a kiss to the top of her head. "Sometimes, yeah, but most of the time I just want to be wherever we're together. I'd like it to be Earth, someday, but for now I'm happy enough here with him and you."

Time passed. They saw a supernova in the distance, and Rory laughed as a piece of space trash floated by. Eventually Amy started to nod off, her head slipping to Rory's chest. He picked her up and carried her through the halls of the TARDIS to their bedroom. Behind them, the TARDIS doors swung slowly shut.


End file.
